No One Will Save You Director Praises Kaitlyn Dever for Taking on "Physical and Intense" Role

No One Will Save You is the latest film from Spontaneous writer/director Brian Duffield, who is also known for writing Underwater, Love & Monsters, and The Babysitter. The new sci-fi horror is heading to Hulu this week, and it stars Kaitlyn Dever as a woman named Brynn who finds herself in the middle of an alien invasion. In honor of the new film, ComicBook.com had the chance to chat with Duffield, who shared high praise for Dever and the hard work she put into carrying the film.

"To never lose sight of Kaitlyn Dever," Duffield replied when asked what his priorities were when bringing the story to life. "I mean, really, it's so funny how, not how easy that can be, but it's like when you have so many stunts and gizmos and CG and all these different things. I remember, I think Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings, it was like 'every third shot in the battle scene had to have one of our leads of the movie.' And I remembered that."

He continued, "And then making this movie, it was like, 'Oh, if we're away from Kaitlyn for two shots, you get bored' and you're just kind of like, 'I don't care. I don't know what this is.' And it could be the coolest shit you've ever seen. But it was like, 'If I don't understand her thinking and feeling. It's all meaningless.' And so that was really the most important. Everything kind of is in service of Brynn in the movie. It's such a hyper-specific point of view. I think it's when she's asleep is kind of the only time we were really away from her point of view. And we even cut that down a little bit. We were like, 'People want to get back to Dever.'"

Duffield added when asked if Dever struggled with how demanding the role was, "She knew what she was signing up for and I was so excited. I don't think she'd ever done a thing where she was getting pulled on wires and running, and I told her beforehand, 'It's going to be a lot of Tom-Cruising.' And she was like, 'Oh, I run.' And then a couple days in she was like, 'I'm tired. I've run a lot,' but was also, 'I've run a lot!,'" Duffield imitated in a proud voice.

"I think she was really into it," he continued. "It was really, really fun for her to get to go do something that was so physical and intense and as an actor, get to use her whole body to create a character. Not that that's not what you do in every role, but this was so – she shows a lot of character through action and I think she had a lot of fun with that. And so I'm sure she was cursing my name under her breath, but at the same time, I think she really enjoyed it. I think there was a lot of fun just getting to do all those things that you never, I mean, same with a filmmaker. I hadn't gotten to do a lot of those things and I was like, 'Toys!' That's great." 

Stay tuned for more from our interview with Brian Duffield. No One Will Save You arrives on Hulu on September 22nd.